Charlemae Hill Rollins 1897–1979

Librarian

At a Glance…

Sources

During her career as a children’s librarian, which spanned more than three decades, Charlemae Hill Rollins made important contributions to ethnically responsible literature for children. In particular, she stressed that African Americans should take pride in their heritage. To this end she campaigned tirelessly to end the stereotypical portrayal of African Americans in juvenile literature. For decades African American children had been portrayed in children’s books as barefooted and poor, or as red-lipped clowns, and they did not interact with other characters as equals. Rollins made it her life’s work to counter these negative stereotypes in literature and to promote the publication of books dealing accurately with the African American experience.

Charlemae Hill was born on June 20, 1897, in Yazoo City, Mississippi. After graduating from Western University, she taught English for a time in Oklahoma and married Joseph Walter Rollins in 1918. In 1927, she accepted a position at the Chicago Public Library, and in 1932 she became the children’s librarian at the newly opened George C. Hall Branch of the Chicago Public Library, a post she held for thirty-six years. During her years as a librarian, Rollins paved inroads for African Americans in her profession. At one time the American Library Association itself held segregated meetings. In 1957, Rollins broke the color barrier when she was the first African American to be elected president of the Children’s Services Division of the American Library Association.

Rollins’s annotated bibliography of children’s books about African Americans, We Build Together: A Reader’s Guide to Negro Life and Literature for Elementary and High School Use, brought her national attention when it was first published in 1941 by the National Council of Teachers of English. “Children as they are growing up need special interpretations of the lives of other peoples, [and] must be helped to an understanding and tolerance,” Rollins is quoted on the University of Southern Mississippi Libraries web site. “They cannot develop these qualities through contacts with others, if those closest to them are prejudiced and unsympathetic with other races and groups. Tolerance and understanding can be gained through reading the right books.” By 1967 Rollins had revised and republished this important bibliography three times.

Rollins compiled Christmas Gif’: An Anthology of Christmas Poems, Songs, and Stories, Written By and About Negroes. This landmark work, which included

At a Glance…

Born June 20, 1897, in Yazoo City, MS; died February 3, 1979, in Chicago IL; daughter of Allen G. and Birdie (Tucker) Hill; married Joseph Walter Rollins, April 8, 1918; children: Joseph Walter, Jr. Education: Western University, 1915; summer study, Columbia University, 1932; University of Chicago, 1934-36.

Career: Chicago, IL, Public Library, 1927-79; children’s librarian at George C. Hall Branch, 1932-79; Roosevelt University, Chicago, IL, instructor in children’s literature, 1949-79; summer instructor at Fisk University, 1950; Morgan College, 1953-54,

Awards: American Brotherhood Award, National Conference of Christians and Jews, 1952; Library Letter Award, American Library Association, 1953; Grolier Society Award, 1955; woman of the year, Zeta Phi Beta, 1956; Good American Award of the Chicago Committee of One-hundred, 1962; Negro Centennial Awards, 1963; Children’s Reading Round Table Award, 1963; Constance Lindsay Skinner Award, Women’s National Book Association, 1970; Coretta Scott King Award, 1971.

selections by Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Booker T. Washington, and Gwendolyn Brooks, appeared in 1963. In her forward to the anthology, Rollins wrote, “The name of this anthology represents much to me—the pleasure of giving and recollections of a happy tradition that had its origin in the days of slavery. The custom of ‘Christmas Gif’ has been a part of the holiday celebration in my family for as long as I can remember.” Rollins continued, “As a child I spent much time with my grandmother, who had been a slave. From her I learned that ‘Christmas Gif’ was a surprise game played by the slaves on Christmas Day. Two people, meeting for the first time that day would compete to be the first to call out, ‘Christmas Gif!’ The loser happily paid a forfeit of a simple present—maybe a tea cake or a handful of nuts. Truly there was more pleasure in being ‘caught,’ and having to give the present—the giving, though comically protested was heartwarming to a people who had so little they could with dignity share with others.” This practice later spread to the homes of plantation owners and became holiday tradition for many.

Thirty years after its initial publication, the anthology was re-issued with linoleum-block illustrations by Ashley Bryan and sporting the updated subtitle “By and About African-Americans.” Also included in the new edition was a note by Rollins’s son, Joseph, Jr., who explained the retention of the original language, “While some...may seem outdated, to make any changes would certainly alter the artistic intent...[The] language does not obscure the messages of peace, unity, and goodwill that still ring true.” Upon its republication, Lois F. Anderson of Horn Book judged it a “worthy addition to the holiday bookshelf,” and a Kirkus Reviews commentator called it a “book that belongs in every library.”

Rollins met poet Langston Hughes in the 1930s at a Works Project Administration (WPA) sponsored writer’s project hosted by her library and the two became fast friends. To combat negative stereotypes, during the 1960s, Rollins wrote several collective biographies of prominent African Americans, including They Showed the Way: Forty American Negro Leaders (1964), Famous American Negro Poets (1965), and Famous Negro Entertainers of Stage, Screen, and TV (1967). Her friendship with Hughes led her to write the poet’s biography, Black Troubadour: Langston Hughes, which won the 1971 Coretta Scott King Award, an honor that acknowledges high quality writing by African American authors. Rollins also lectured on children’s literature at Roosevelt University in Chicago and taught for several summers at Fisk University and Morgan State College. She died on February 3, 1979.

During her lifetime, Rollins earned numerous awards for her accomplishments—which included various humanitarian, as well as literary, activities—and her memory has been honored in many ways. For example, the Charlemae Hill Rollins Scholarship pays the tuition of an African American student working toward a master’s degree in library science. The Carter G. Woodson Regional Library in Chicago contains a room that was dedicated to Rollins in 1977. Christopher Paul Curtis, in his 1999 Newbery Award winning children’s novel, Bud, Not Buddy, gave tribute to Rollins by when he portrayed her by name as the sympathetic children’s librarian whom main character Bud encounters in the Chicago Library. Rollins left her research to posterity in her publications in books and journals but also in her selected papers. Her explorations of segregation, Head Start, African American bibliography, and other topics are housed at the African American Resources Program, School of Library and Information Sciences at North Carolina Central University, in Durham, North Carolina. Even more, Rollins left a legacy of striving to portray African Americans with dignity in children’s literature, a goal that is continually being taken up by new generations of African American writers, educators, and librarians.

Sources

Books

Hine, Darlene Clark, Black Women in America, Carlson Publishing, 1993.

Periodicals

African American Review, spring, 1998.

Booklist, July, 1993.

Horn Book, May-June, 1994.

Jet, November 4, 1991; December 23, 1996.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 1993.

School Library Journal, October, 1993.

Other

Additional information was obtained on-line at University of Southern Mississippi Libraries, “Black Experience in Children’s Literature”, www.lib.usm.edu/~degrum/blackexperience/homepage.html, November 14, 2000 and Mississippi State University, “Christmas Gif”, www.msstate.edu/listarchives/afrigeneas/199812/msg00217.html, November 14, 2000.

—Jeanne M. Lesinski